Shell and Tesoro refineries in Martinez get units back online

MARTINEZ -- Two East Bay refineries are getting back to full operation with the restart of key units at the fuel plants, according to filings with Contra Costa County health officials.

Shell restarted a coker unit at its 157,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Martinez, a county filing shows. The unit had been down for about two months.

Tesoro restarted a unit at its 165,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Martinez. The unit wasn't identified. It had been offline for a planned repair and maintenance effort.

Recently, San Ramon-based Chevron told analysts that it will restart a crude processing unit at its Richmond refinery in early 2013. The unit, deemed to be the heart of the refinery, was knocked out on Aug. 6 following a fire that hobbled the East Bay refinery.

Chevron said it expects crude distillation unit No. 4 will resume operations during the first three months of 2013. Since the unit went offline, Chevron has operated the refinery at 60 percent capacity. The company's primary activity at the refinery currently is to blend gasoline for transportation fuels.